Uploaded July 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A conversation with Henry Grabar and Simon Kuper at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 05/07/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.
The parking lot exercises a tyrannical grip over American geography. Join author Henry Grabar and journalist Simon Kuper in asking: how has the storage of cars taken priority over human life?
An invisible evil holds American cities and suburbs in a deathgrip. Tying bureaucrats in administrative knots, grinding development projects, green initiatives, and housing plans to a halt, regularly ruining the average commuter’s morning, no problem is more American than the problem of parking. In Paved Paradise, journalist Henry Grabar provides an astonishing, fascinating ride through the history of parking across the American landscape, from New York to Disney World. As the U.S. faces a worsening housing crisis, and as green space disappears from urban centers, he asks: how has storing cars taken priority over human life? Join him in conversation with journalist Simon Kuper to learn how the vast American expanse has been taken captive by concrete.
About the speakers:
Henry Grabar is a staff writer at Slate who writes about housing, transportation, and urban policy. He has contributed to The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and other publications, and was the editor of the book The Future of Transportation. He received the Richard Rogers Fellowship from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and was a finalist for the Livingston Award for excellence in national reporting by journalists under thirty-five.
Simon Kuper was educated at Oxford University and Harvard. He has been working for the Financial Times since 1994, and now writes a general column for the newspaper. His recent books include The Happy Traitor, his biography of the double agent George Blake (2021) and Barça: The Rise and Fall of the Club that Invented Modern Football (2021), which won the Sunday Times award for Football Book of the Year. His Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK, appeared in 2022 and became a Sunday Times bestseller.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
A conversation with Henry Grabar and Simon Kuper at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 05/07/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.
The parking lot exercises a tyrannical grip over American geography. Join author Henry Grabar and journalist Simon Kuper in asking: how has the storage of cars taken priority over human life?
An invisible evil holds American cities and suburbs in a deathgrip. Tying bureaucrats in administrative knots, grinding development projects, green initiatives, and housing plans to a halt, regularly ruining the average commuter’s morning, no problem is more American than the problem of parking. In Paved Paradise, journalist Henry Grabar provides an astonishing, fascinating ride through the history of parking across the American landscape, from New York to Disney World. As the U.S. faces a worsening housing crisis, and as green space disappears from urban centers, he asks: how has storing cars taken priority over human life? Join him in conversation with journalist Simon Kuper to learn how the vast American expanse has been taken captive by concrete.
About the speakers:
Henry Grabar is a staff writer at Slate who writes about housing, transportation, and urban policy. He has contributed to The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and other publications, and was the editor of the book The Future of Transportation. He received the Richard Rogers Fellowship from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and was a finalist for the Livingston Award for excellence in national reporting by journalists under thirty-five.
Simon Kuper was educated at Oxford University and Harvard. He has been working for the Financial Times since 1994, and now writes a general column for the newspaper. His recent books include The Happy Traitor, his biography of the double agent George Blake (2021) and Barça: The Rise and Fall of the Club that Invented Modern Football (2021), which won the Sunday Times award for Football Book of the Year. His Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK, appeared in 2022 and became a Sunday Times bestseller.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
